You underestimate just how unhospitable space is and how little we are adapted to living there. The health of astronauts coming back from the ISS has deteriorated. Their heart has grown weaker, their bones have grown weaker. Psychologically, they aren't topfit either.
You underestimate just how unhospitable space is and how little we are adapted to living there.
It may appear to be that way from one post. I don't.
The health of astronauts coming back from the ISS has deteriorated.
The short-term affects of micro-gravity appear to be un-good, I agree.
Please note I was speaking of settling places with gravity. About that we simply don't know, yet.
Psychologically, they aren't topfit either.
If you spent six months living in an industrial facility the size of a winnebago you'd be a little off, too.
My expectations of 'the future' are that people will live in bodies with gravity - the moon, Mars. Off-planet facilities will be what off-shore oil platforms are today: a place to work, and live short-term, for high pay. Then you go home to the wife and kids.
I think you underestimate the degree of technological infrastructure needed to support modern living. Our food, homes, water, sanitation, etc. are all produced through a world spanning industrial supply chain. Without that support structure civilization would collapse to a tiny fraction of the current population, especially in cities. The industrial infrastructure to support a Mars colony is cetainly different and in some aspects more modern than that necessary to support New York City, but that difference is much less extreme than the difference between what it takes to support NYC today and what it took to support human civilization a few centuries ago.
Once off Earth colonization takes off that distinction will seem less and less significant over time.
